Ukraine Is Determined To Flatten Russia’s Khalino Air Base

Khalino air base, in the city of Kursk in the oblast of the same name, is the closest military airfield to Sudzha, the border town that’s the locus of Ukraine’s surprise invasion of Kursk Oblast that kicked off on Tuesday.

Khalino hosts the Russian air force’s 14th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. The regiment’s 24 Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter-bombers can carry KAB glide bombs, which weigh up to three tons and range 25 miles or farther on pop-out wings.

No sooner had those five Ukrainian brigades rolled across the border on Tuesday than the Russian air force began pummeling the brigades, and their bases in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, with around 50 KABs a day—half the KABs the Russians drop all along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 29-month wider war on Ukraine.

The Ukrainians know how important Khalino is. Which is why they’ve been attacking it harder since the week before the invasion.

Khalino is just 65 miles from the border, placing it within range of a wide array of Ukrainian deep-strike weapons including ballistic and cruise missiles and explosive drones. The Ukrainians have struck the base several times since February 2022.

A drone raid on Khalino in December 2022 triggered a fire at the base’s fuel depot. Another attack eight months later involved Ukraine’s unique cardboard attack drones.

The attacks escalated. On July 31, just six days before the Ukrainian invasion, Ukrainian navy Neptune cruise missiles struck Khalino’s ammunition depot and burned part of it to the ground, possibly destroying any KABs stored there.

Eleven days later, Ukrainian troops have captured nearly 400 square miles of Kursk Oblast—fighting through a barrage of KABs that damaged or destroyed several Ukrainian vehicles. On Saturday night or Sunday morning, a Ukrainian missile was apparently streaking toward Khalino when it fell short and struck an apartment building in Kursk, injuring 13 Russian civilians.

The danger to the 14th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment and any other Russian forces at Khalino will only increase as long as the Ukrainians control that swathe of Kursk adjacent to the border.

If they attacked Khalino from inside the invasion zone, the Ukrainians could target the air base with their shorter-ranged ground-launched rockets including M30/31s fired by American-made High-Mobility Artillery Rockets Systems.

It’s not clear the Ukrainian army would risk its precious HIMARS that close to the front line. But if it were willing, it could hit Khalino harder than ever.